Field of the Invention
This disclosure relates to the field of processing items. In particular, this disclosure relates to systems and methods for loading items into a tray.
Description of the Related Art
In many industrial concerns, processing large quantities of items is crucial. For example, many items must be received and handled for sorting, distributing or otherwise processing with various processing equipment. Some operations involve thousands or millions of items handled daily. Items intended for processing or sorting in processing equipment may be received in bundles. Items are typically manually loaded into or unloaded from the processing equipment into trays, which can be time consuming and inefficient.
As an example, mail delivery operations may involve receiving, unloading, transporting and loading thousands of pieces of mail daily into trays for further processing and delivery. The high volume of mail items means more time spent on these and other processes. Poorly designed systems and components that require inconvenient and time intensive movement of items lead to processing inefficiencies with each item that add up to significant losses of time over the course of a day or year.
This is merely one example of an industrial concern that relies on sorting and receiving large quantities of items. Others may include, but are not limited to, retail concerns with large inventories and high daily sales, high volume component manufacturers such as consumer goods, and importing concerns with high volume imports needing sorting and receiving daily.
There is therefore a need for improved systems, devices and methods that allow for efficient and convenient processing of a large volume of items to and from associated processing equipment.